The variety of plants and trees is seemingly endless

This joke is about two chickens walking along a road, one in the middle and one on the side.  The last word from the one in the middle is -- drum roll -- 'the same in both languages'.

Even adults enjoy our monkeys and crocodile finger plays.

 We were returning from the district conference (on Sunday).  Imagine our surprise when the bus pulled over and half the members got off to buy fruit.  That lesson hasn't reached here yet.  I don't think I'll give a talk on it in the next few weeks, but we need to have a reminder of the prophet's counsel not to buy on Sundays.  It was my favorite fruit stand, too.

People are patient with the long bus rides.

 Lizardo conducted for the conference.  He stood tall, smiled, and didn't make a single error.  He also played the sacrament hymn in sacrament meeting today with two hands.  Hooray!  One of our other students, Abdiel, who received his keyboard last Sunday had his first hymn memorized today.

 I don't even know the names of these flowers, but they are unusual and interesting.

 More variety.

 We pass by this scene often.  There is usually one chain saw and a group of men, heads protected from the sun by a t-shirt, hacking away at the tree branches with machetes.

 The banana blossom is just beginning to turn itself downward for production.  It's kind of behind the dead leaf.

 Now the bananas form from the top down.

This blossom has bananas above it but you can't see them.  The flower never opens up, just one or two petals at a time.

One of my students had a diary one day.  She's about 10 or so.  She wanted to know if I kept a journal.  I told her I try.  She challenged me to return and report to her.  We've been much more faithful since, looking for the hand of the Lord in our lives.  There are lovely tender mercies each day when we look.  So far all are seemingly small, but who knows.  It's really nice when I, who can't keep directions straight at all, can direct Rod just at the time when he, who seldom gets confused, is confused.

I got my hair cut, (really short) by a woman who says her art is a gift from God.  She told me as she cut that she wants to be a missionary.  I told her about Preach My Gospel and our training.  She said she was interested and made an appointment with us for Sunday afternoon.  When we went today, we told her a bit about the restoration of the gospel and asked her if she was interested.  She said, "When you're thirsty, you want water".  We will see where it goes, but we read together and enjoyed our visit.  She is a little younger than we are.

Blythe has a professor in Organizational Behavior at BYU who is working with the Brethren to improve the success rate of senior couples.  He feels, as do we, that the best way to get more seniors to serve is to have couples return thrilled and ready for more.  We had a nice talk with him.  He says he was a mission president and would love to serve again.  He plans a mission and plans to find out about the presidents in the missions he considers.  If they are hands off, and "go for it", he wants to serve under them.  He has great confidence in people using their strengths to serve the Lord.  He agrees with us that it makes sense to go where people are baptizing.  He feels that there are no coincidences and that we can see the hand of the Lord and directions for our lives in different ways.  We hadn't realized that people change mission calls fairly frequently when they don't seem to apply, nor that there are people whose job it is to help sort these things out and get the right information to the decision makers.  The church generally approves the choice of a couple as to where they should go, unless there is an overriding need (revelation).  We will be more proactive as we apply for another mission, we are learning much, in many areas.

Thursday we didn't have time to prepare lunch, so we stopped at McDonald's.  They had triple bacon cheeseburgers for $1.59.  Rod got 3 of them.  I ate my one as we were sitting a bit before the house of one of our students.  She came to the door and could see us, so I stuffed my mouth and we went on.  When we got there one of the first things she said was, "I've prepared fried chicken and coconut rice with guandu for you!"  Guandu are their special beans.  Rod was a good sport and tucked it in.  I reduced my portion of rice and was able to eat it.  It was delicious.  We never know when we'll get fed.  One of the things I really like is tomatoes with lemon zest, a tiny bit of oil and salt and pepper.  It is grand.

Once again, life is good, the Lord is blessing us and our family.  I love how our students pray for us all.